The invention relates to the manufacturing of Semiconductor-On-Insulator (SeOI) structures for electronics or optoelectronics applications, and in particular Silicon-On-Insulator or SOI structures having a high thermal conductivity.
A SeOI structure comprises a substrate, a dielectric layer and a top semiconductor layer, the dielectric layer electrically insulating the top layer from the substrate. SeOI structures are usually manufactured by wafer bonding via the dielectric layer which acts both as an electric insulator and as a bonding layer between the top layer and the substrate.
The SeOI structures that are highly thermal conductor are especially used for dissipating the heat released from components to be manufactured in the top layer of the SeOI. It is particularly useful for components able to release a large quantity of heat, like high power frequency components.
To this end, it is known to provide a substrate with material(s) having good thermal conductivity, like monocrystalline or polycrystalline SiC.
For these kinds of structures, it would be also appreciated having a dielectric layer that is a good conductor of thermal energy. For this purpose, it is known to provide a dielectric nitride layer, like Si3N4 or SixNyOz between the substrate and the top layer. However, the manufacturing of these SeOI structures by wafer bonding is difficult due to the fact that nitride materials have bad bonding properties. SiO2 has better bonding properties, but it has a low thermal conductivity.
Accordingly, there is a need for manufacturing SeOI structures with high thermal conductivity while implementing a bonding of good quality.